The Attack by William Bryden (you can read anyone txt) 📕

CHAPTER 2: THE WONDERFUL HORROR

Artemis and I were sitting at our gate waiting for our plane. We had packed everything and left our dorm. College was over and we were coming home. Artemis had an obsession over coffee and had drank two so far. He was starting on his third when he had gotten too excited and spilled his coffee on himself. He was wiping it off with napkins at the moment. Some of the girls laughed at him. I laughed with them and he didn’t seem to like it too much. I had been looking over the bead all morning and couldn’t find anything special about it besides the little silver slit on one side of it. I decided to go get some food since our flight was in a couple of hours.
I walked down to the food court and bought a pepperoni pizza. I sat at a table away from everyone else and looked over the bead. The silver slit had turned into a blue slit. I took a bite of the pepperoni pizza. It was cold. Great. I first light a trashcan on fire and then my first meal is cold. It was going to be a wonderful day. I could just feel it. Artemis joined me with a fourth coffee.
“You’re going to be hyper Artemis.”
“But it is so good!”
“To much of it will…”
“Oh my gosh! I have to go to the bathroom!” Artemis ran off leaving his coffee on the table.
“What did I tell him,” I told myself.
“Well you sort of told him but he cut you off,” said a girl standing next to the table. She held out her hand.
“I’m Viviane.” I shook her hand.
“I’m Michael.”
“Yeah I know. I’ve read all about you and watched you at the Olympics. That was awesome!”
“Thanks.” I mumbled taking another bite of my pizza.
“I bet you get that a lot. You know, the “that was great” stuff?”
“Yeah.” She sat down opposite of me and for the first time I actually looked at her. She had long golden blonde hair and green eyes. From what I could tell she was pretty tall and very skinny like she was on one of those South Beach diet programs or something. She also had a southern accent.
“So where are you headed?” She asked.
“Back home to America.”
“Really?” She said. “Me too!”
“Great. Well it was nice meeting you.” I got up and threw away the pizza box.
“Yeah. You too,”
I walked off towards the gate. Artemis was already back at the gate going through the bags. I found him with a Pepto Bismol bottle in his hand. I got out a bottle of water and chugged it all down. The pizza had made me so thirsty. Once I threw away the bottle I saw Artemis taking a pink Pepto Bismol tablet.
“My stomach hurts,” he said once he finished swallowing the pill.
“Gee. I wonder why,” I said mocking him.
“Oh shut up.”
“Hahaha…” I laughed when I saw his face.
“What?”
“Your face is green.”
“Well my stomach hurts so…” He ran off to the bathroom again.
I sat down and took out my power book. I had all my house plans stored in it. I couldn’t wait until I got to America to build my first house. The power book was where I also conducted business. I had my e-mail, stocks, and banking accounts all as gadgets stored on the power book. Right now I had nothing in my e-mail and the stocks were down, but the money in the bank was getting higher. It had just reached $1.4 billion over night and was still climbing. I guess those animals reached New Zealand, but that is another story too.
I went online and checked my Facebook. None of my friends from America were on. It was weird. I got off and saw the fuel car being driven away from the plane and it looked like they were ready to board the plane.
“We will be boarding soon. Please have your passes ready to be scanned,” I heard the woman at the counter say through a microphone. I put up my power book and stood up stretching my legs. It was time to go home.

* * *

The take off was rough and I could have sworn that the ground started shaking once we were about a hundred feet in the air. I was sitting next to Artemis and that girl Viviane. She was actually pretty nice, and she was very smart too. Viviane and I were talking about quantum physics while Artemis tried to stay away from an extremely fat man. The man apparently had a very bad case of B.O. because the kid next to him was already puking only ten minutes into the flight. The man also was sitting on the other side of Artemis.
“Michael!” Hissed Artemis.
“Oh take some pepto bismol,” I said looking at the kid who was still puking. “and get over it.” I told him.
“This is so not fair. You get to sit by a hottie and I sit by a fat slob!?”
I thought the man had heard that when he looked in our direction, but he smiled at me when I waved nervously.
“He must be a nice guy,” I tried to explain to Artemis. “Why don’t you try to start a conversation with him?”
“I don’t know…” Artemis said tensely.
“Give me a break.” I said, and went back to talk about quantum physics again with Viviane.
After we had gotten our free beverages from the flight crew, Artemis struck up a conversation with the big guy. The big guy actually turned out to be very nice, and his name was Ken. He was a mechanical engineer and was being transferred by his company to America. He seemed to have the same interests as Artemis and they were soon talking about cars and things like that. Viviane and I then started talking about each other.
“So what are you going to America for?” I asked.
“Well. First of all I’d like to go home, but mainly because my parents have found a clinic near them that I can work at as a nurse.”
“That’s nice.”
“Yeah. So what about you? What are you going to be besides an Olympic swimmer?”
“Well… I don’t know yet. I’m actually living off of my sponsors at the moment.”
“That’s interesting.”
“It’s very nice.”
“Mhmm.”
I stared into her eyes and she was staring into mine. We leaned toward each other and then…
“Hey Michael!”
I jumped in my seat and Viviane fell back into hers blushing.
“What Artemis?” I rounded on him.
“Do you want to play a game?”
“No! I’m in no mood for a stupid game!”
“Well then…” Artemis added snobbishly.
Artemis turned around and started talking to Ken. I looked back over at Viviane but she had gotten her iPod out and started listening to it. I sat there for a minute and then decided to take out my power book. I had paid for the new Internet access they had now rolled out onto all planes, so my power book had Internet. I checked my banking account and found that I had now $1.7 billion… so Feng had done his job. That of course, was also a different story.
I did various things on my power book for the next couple of hours of the flight including selling all my stock in Disney and buying more of General Motors since it was down. Our lunch arrived at about 1:30 and by that time I was starving. I scarfed down a meal of caesar salad, 16oz. sirloin (I had to pay extra for that), and a small bowl of coffee ice cream for desert, and water to drink. I was finished at lest 15 minutes before everyone else and spent that time groaning over a hurting stomach and taking pepto bismol. Artemis got a kick out of that. He also got a kick out of the coffee he drank that morning. He had to go to the bathroom… and stay there… for half an hour.
“I told him drinking too much coffee would be very bad for him.” I said.
“You were completely right.” Replied Ken.
There was a little bit of turbulence while Artemis was using the facilities. Artemis came out of the bathroom with a dizzy appearance.
“Turbulence is a bad thing when you’re in the bathroom…” said Artemis dizzily.
“I don’t want to picture it thank you very much.” I replied.
“Neither do I!” said Viviane, laughing when she saw him.
Artemis sat down and started moaning. He put the seat back, aggravating the passenger behind him and fell asleep in seconds.
“Wow… He was out pretty quick.” Said Ken.
As soon as he said that Artemis sprang up and screamed. Everyone turned in his direction to stare at him.
“Artemis! Sit down!” I hissed.
Artemis sat down with a look of horror on his face.
“What’s wrong Artemis?”
“I saw… I saw…” He shuddered.
“What? What frightened you?”
“Fire… lots of it… dead corpses and half dead people screaming in agony…” He shuddered again. “There was also… our plane… utterly pulverized. Tons of… holes had been… dr… dr… dilled into it so it… seemed…” He closed his eyes tight. “The sky… It was so dark. It was as if the sun had gone out… and that there was no life… le…le… left on this planet…”
“Wow… that’s intense.” Said Viviane.
“Do you think it means something?” Ken asked Artemis.
“It’s probably just a stupid nightmare… or maybe the apocalypse is coming sooner than expected,” I joked.
“I definitely hope that that isn’t the case.” Said Ken nervously.
“Give me a break it’s just a stupid nightmare.”
“How could it have happened so fast then?” asked Viviane.
She had a good point. It had happened in a couple of seconds. Still… it was very awkward.
“I don’t think so…” I said, but I was lying.
We all sat in complete silence. The air had become still. We were all tense in our seats and waiting… just waiting for what might come. After an hour of nothing we were back to our normal selves. Viviane and I had struck up another conversation, and Ken was playing a game with Artemis. They started showing a movie at about 3 o’clock and that lasted until about 6. The movie was an old classic. Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith. We were all tired after the movie and decided to take a nap. I wish we hadn’t.

* * *

I woke up to find myself in a frenzy of screaming and severe shaking. People were dashing up and down the isles of the plane yelling. One group of people was praying. I quickly unbuckled my seatbelt and realized that there were small holes all throughout the plane… “There was also… our plane…